We are going to be working on applying the latest upgrade to the catalog, WebPac Pro, in the next couple of months. Spellcheck is one of the features we will be adding with the upgrade. Patrons will be asked "did you mean..." if they enter a search that results in no hits. Yay! Pretty cool.
We have also looked into the Community Reviews feature, which would allow patrons to add reviews to materials in the catalog. All reviews would be moderated, so nothing would be posted automatically, and people have to log into their account to write a review. OWLS staff is very interested in adding this feature when we upgrade to WebPac Pro. It has been included in the development budget, but we are wondering what your thoughts are. Would you like patrons to be able to add reviews to materials in InfoSoup? Should we include Community Reviews in the WebPac Pro upgrade?
Comments (6)
Spell check is an awesomely good idea.
Community Reviews might be good, and is probably good. Shifting gears -- I had thought mostly about doing this in a blog external to the catalog, as opposed to integrated. But if I like it at Amazon, why wouldn't I like it here? Hmm.
Are there any examples of libraries doing this to look at or get reports from?
Posted by Terry | March 2, 2007 1:47 PM
Posted on March 2, 2007 13:47
Gerri is working on getting some live examples, so you can see what it looks like elsewhere. As soon as I have something, I'll post some links! :)
Posted by Beth C. OWLS | March 2, 2007 2:08 PM
Posted on March 2, 2007 14:08
I like the idea of patron comments in the catalog. Several summers ago, we created a bibliography of titles read by adults in our adult summer library program. Title, author, and the patron's comments on the book were given whether the review was good or bad. We could never keep enough copies on hand because the demand was so strong. People simply wanted to know what other people thought about a book and I know our circulation reflected the lists. We maintained the lists for several years and had to reluctantly stop doing them because they were so time-consuming to create. It would be lovely to see our catalog reflect our patron's viewpoints.
Posted by Barbara Wentzel | March 2, 2007 2:56 PM
Posted on March 2, 2007 14:56
I think this is a very nice idea. Are you thinking of having something like a "Patron Reviews" link off to the right with the other review links? I also think it's a good idea to include it directly in the catalog, linked to specific items, rather than in an external, stand-alone resource.
Posted by saraK | March 13, 2007 12:08 PM
Posted on March 13, 2007 12:08
Sara, the patron reviews link wouldn't likely be in the links to the right, but more a part of the full record. We can probably place the link wherever we like on the page, but yes, it would be linked to specific items rather than a separate resource. We're trying, however, to find out if we could also pull patron reviews out into a "recently reviewed" feature of sorts. This would help highlight different titles and would share reviews that might otherwise be hard to find until we get more titles reviewed over time in the catalog. We're still trying to find URLs for library systems that are using this feature, so we can give you a better idea of how it might look. It's new, so there aren't many examples out there. Let me know if you have any other questions, and thanks for your comments!
Posted by Beth C. OWLS | March 13, 2007 2:13 PM
Posted on March 13, 2007 14:13
I like the idea of having reader reviews. It's very interesting to read them on Amazon. I think it would open up doors to other services like user recommendations and book club blogs, which would also be nice.
Posted by Leslie F, OWLS | May 1, 2007 10:53 AM
Posted on May 1, 2007 10:53